


Between Land and Sea

by Oakwyrm



Category: Thrilling Intent (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Compromise, Fae Magic, Falling In Love, M/M, Rules Lawyering the Magic, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 10:30:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15508077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oakwyrm/pseuds/Oakwyrm
Summary: Gregor Hartway is a fisherman's son. Zalvetta is one of the sea's children. By all rights, the two should never even have met, by the very laws of the universe they should be utterly incompatible, but they make it work.





	Between Land and Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I based this on the song "The Maiden and the Selkie" but then it kinda didn't go the way I planned and also that song takes so many liberties with selkie lore that I just threw that out the window and made Zalvetta a vague unspecified mythical sea creature instead.

They were sixteen when they met. The night was cold, wind howling around the corners of the little cottage by the sea. Gregor’s bed was empty, an unusual thing at this late hour. It was rare for his nightmares to actually drive him out of bed, but just this once, perhaps, it was a good thing.

He’d pulled on his coat and shoes over his pyjamas, leaving the cottage as quietly as possible so as not to wake his parents. The wind tugged at him, trying to push him out towards the sharp cliffs and the cold sea, but he kept to the path. Despite the angry howling of the wind, the sky was clear. The moon shone bright and full in the sky, the endless expanse of stars making him feel dizzy and small if he stared at them for too long.

His legs moved on autopilot, taking him down the familiar rocky paths until he reached a sheltered cove. The cliffs towered high above him, now, blocking out part of the sky. The waves lapped gently against the shore and slowly he began to relax.

His eyes slid lazily over the cove, taking in the familiar scenery in the unfamiliar lighting. The craggy rocks, the narrow opening that let in the water, the figure sitting on the large stone close to shore-

He stopped, eyes snapping back to the stone and its occupant. A person, small and pale under the moonlight. His light hair practically shone, hanging in a way that told Gregor it had to be absolutely soaked. He would have worried, but the patches on the stranger's skin made him more curious than anything. Patches, around his shoulders, on his arms, that glittered like fish scales.

Gregor had heard the stories of the people who lived below the waves. How much of them was accurate he didn’t know. More often than not they were cautionary tales. _Don’t speak to them, don’t let them ensnare you, lest they drag you down to their watery home._ A small knot of fear settled in his stomach, but curiosity won out. Carefully, silently, he moved closer.

They were scales. Silvery blue in colour, if Gregor had to make a guess. His heartbeat rose a tick, the rational part of his mind screaming at him that he should not be getting this close without a way to defend himself. He might have turned back then, might have left without ever getting noticed, but any chance at that fled at his next step.

The solid rock below him shifted to the small stones of the beach. He hadn’t realised he’d gotten so close. He immediately stepped back, but the damage was done. The tell-tale rattle of stones shifting underfoot made the stranger jump, leaping back into the water with a splash. Gregor could hear his heartbeat in his ears as he scanned the water for any ripple or shadow that would tell him where he’d gone, but there was nothing.

Zalvetta’s heart was threatening to beat out of his chest as he pressed himself against the stone he’d just been sitting on, listening for any more movement. A human, it had to be. Silently he cursed his inattention, how long had they been there? He steeled himself, trying to calm his breathing.

Again he heard the rustle of stones underfoot, more this time. The gate was definitely bipedal, not that he’d had much doubt that it was a human, but it was good to have confirmation at least. The footsteps stopped and a longer rustle followed as the human likely sat down.

Carefully Zalvetta looked out from behind the stone. As soon as he laid eyes on the human he felt foolish for panicking. He probably wasn’t much older than Zalvetta was, and he didn’t look like he was hiding a weapon anywhere. His brown hair hung loosely about him, his eyes, equally as brown, scanning the water.

Suddenly put at ease Zalvetta hauled himself back up onto the rock, laying on his stomach instead of sitting up. A slightly more shielded position, just in case. The human’s eyes snapped to him, widening in surprise.

“Bit late for a walk, isn’t it?” Zalvetta asked, his mouth pulling into a purposefully lazy grin.

Gregor stared at the stranger for a long moment. Not speaking, studying him. His face had an unsettling quality about it. Almost human, but not quite. Amber eyes, ever so slightly too big and blinking far too little. Patches of small scales near his ears, so small one might almost mistake them for nothing more than an odd discolouration, and what distinctly looked like gills etched into his throat.

Worse, however, were the teeth, razor sharp and deadly. Gregor was sure the stranger had purposefully decided to expose them, a silent warning. _Try anything, and I’ll rip your throat out._

“I thought you left,” he said cautiously, not answering the question. The stranger’s face pulled into a slight frown.

“Nope, still here.” He rested his chin in his hand, studying Gregor intently. “You can’t be older than, what? Seventeen? Humans still live with their parents at that age right? They’re gonna worry.”

“Sixteen,” Gregor corrected automatically, not bothering to inform him that his parents wouldn’t worry because they didn’t even know he’d left the house. The stranger’s grin was back, more honest this time but still somewhat unsettling.

“I knew it.” He looked proud of himself. Gregor frowned. “Human age is a bit hard to gauge sometimes, especially with your elders, but I thought you might be my age.”

He slid off the rock into the water, though he stayed by it. “I’m Zalvetta.”

Gregor hesitated. All the old stories played in the back of his mind, all warning him against what he was about to do. If he were older, wiser, less trusting, perhaps he would have listened, wouldn’t have taken the risk, would’ve turned and left and never looked back. He wasn’t, though, and he didn’t, and in the end, his life would be all the richer for it.

“My name’s Gregor.”

* * *

It was almost alarming how quickly Zalvetta slipped seamlessly into his life as if he always should’ve been there. Foggy mornings and clear nights brought him back to the cove, always arriving before Gregor, no matter how hard he tried to be there first.

Days turned into weeks, weeks into months until winter rolled in and snow covered the ground. Gregor worried for a while that Zalvetta might not show up, might wait out the cold in deeper waters, but his worry proved unnecessary. It was unnerving, the first time he saw Zalvetta in winter. He’d been somewhat aware during the fall that despite the steady drop in temperature, Zalvetta’s clothing never changed.

Seeing him haul himself up out of the frigid waters onto his now snow-covered rock in the same clothing made of seaweed and other undersea flora was an entirely different thing. It chilled Gregor to the bone just to look at him.

He shivered, pulling his heavy winter coat tighter around himself. Zalvetta laughed lightly, though the sound held no hint of mockery.

“I keep forgetting you’re so sensitive to the weather,” he mused aloud, pulling at the hem of his shirt. A short, cropped thing that had barely been acceptable during the warmer parts of fall, let alone in winter.

“Can you even feel how cold it is?” Gregor asked, sitting down a good ways away from the water. Zalvetta leaned back slightly, staring up at the sky, though he couldn’t see it through the dense fog.

“I can tell that it’s different,” he offered, combing his fingers through his hair. “Summer feels softer.” Gregor nodded thoughtfully as Zalvetta quietly swore over a particularly stubborn tangle.

“That kind of makes sense?” Not for the first time, he found himself studying Zalvetta. He didn’t know anyone who claimed a direct acquaintance with any of the sea’s children. He knew plenty who had supposed cousins and old friends who’d supposedly seen one, but the stories varied so greatly. He was, quite frankly, curious. At the very start of their friendship, he’d begun to log everything about Zalvetta that made him different. Trying, without asking too much too frequently, to figure him out.

He’d gotten used to it by now, how sometimes when Zalvetta visited he had legs and sometimes he didn’t. He was used to the slightly too large eyes, the scales, the clawed hands. He’d grown to cherish the sound of Zalvetta’s voice. He didn’t know for sure if magic was woven into his friend’s words, but he almost didn’t care. Not even the teeth, which at first had set off every instinctual danger bell in Gregor’s mind, could make him so much as blink in surprise.

“What’re you thinking so hard about?” Zalvetta’s voice snapped him out of his reflections.

“You,” he answered, seeing no reason to lie. Zalvetta froze for a second, so briefly Gregor might just have imagined it. He may also have imagined the faint dusting of pink that flared briefly across Zalvetta’s face, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t.

“Yeah? What about me?” he asked, though his tone held an undertone of uncertainty Gregor hadn’t heard there before.

“Nothing bad. Just wondering.” Gregor tilted his head to the side. “When’s your birthday?” It wasn’t actually what he’d been wondering, but it was something he wanted to know. Zalvetta looked completely uncomprehending.

“My… what?”

Gregor stared at him for a moment and Zalvetta stared back, both caught in a moment of utter confusion.

“Your… birthday.” Gregor repeated. “The anniversary of the day you were born? Or hatched? Or created? Or… however you came into being?”

“Oooh.” A spark of recognition lit up in Zalvetta’s eyes. “Yeah, I have one of those. It’s not that far off, actually.” He frowned for a moment, looking like he was doing some kind of calculation in his head. “Should be… on the eighth day of the second month by your calendar? I think?” Gregor nodded, making note of the date.

“You’re older than me by about four months, then,” he said. “Mine’s on the first of June.” Zalvetta hummed thoughtfully.

“That fits,” he said. His tone was such that Gregor half suspected he hadn’t meant to speak the thought aloud.

“Why?” he asked and Zalvetta started, confirming his suspicion, though he recovered his composure rather quickly.

“Just that you’re softer than me.” He shrugged. “You’re not very soft, but you’re softer than me.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment?”

Zalvetta smiled, but Gregor could swear there was something sad underneath it. “You should.” With a fluid, graceful motion he stood and leapt back into the water, vanishing beneath the surface as the fog began to dissipate.

On the eighth of February that year the day was unfortunately clear and the sky shrouded itself in heavy grey clouds as evening drew near. Still, Gregor snuck down to the cove when night had fallen, lantern in one hand and a package held securely against his chest in the other, cradled as if it was the greatest of treasures.

He spoke to the water, feeling a little ridiculous as he left the gift near the shoreline and turned back towards his home. It worked, though. When he next saw Zalvetta on a clear, half-moon night, he was tossing a knife made of bone lazily from hand to hand.

“Why the coin?” Zalvetta asked when he noticed Gregor’s approach. He slid the knife back into its sheath and turned, holding up the copper piece with some confusion.

“It’s a superstition,” Gregor said, suddenly embarrassed though he knew Zalvetta wouldn’t judge him, he didn’t have any room to. He was a walking, talking myth come to life. “Knives as gifts are supposed to be bad luck for a relationship because it’s like cutting a bond? The coin’s there so you can give it back to me so that doesn’t happen.”

Zalvetta looked down at the coin in his hand and shrugged, tossing it back to Gregor with ease. He caught it out of the air and pocketed it, a feeling of contentment settling over him.

* * *

He was seventeen when he started to question what Zalvetta meant to him, truly. When he started to note the odd warmth in his chest whenever it looked like a clear night was coming, or he woke up with fog pressed heavy against his window. He started to pay attention to the way his heart leapt when Zalvetta laughed, how easy it was to relax around him, how honestly beautiful he was.

He was seventeen when he realised he was in love with one of the sea’s children, and seventeen when he buried that feeling deep in his chest. To be treasured, but never touched, never let out lest it break some fragile balance that he couldn’t quite see.

It wasn’t long after this realisation that Zalvetta stepped onto land for what he said was the first time in his life. Gregor had no trouble believing him. His effortless grace seemed to drain out of him the moment he stepped foot on shore, transformed from elegant creature of the sea to a wobbly mess.

“Why haven’t you been on land before?” he asked as he helped Zalvetta find a new balance. Zalvetta's hands kept a vice-like grip on Gregor’s arm, even as he grew slightly steadier.

“If I stay on land until the dawn of a new day I’ll wither up and die.” He said it in such a normal tone that Gregor almost didn’t register what, exactly, he’d said for a second. When the words finally did sink in a sick, worried feeling washed over him for a second. He had to remind himself that the night was still young, that he’d get himself back to the cottage and Zalvetta back to the sea long before the sun even thought about rising.

Still…

“That’s horrifying,” he said, not entirely able to hide the concern in his tone. Zalvetta shrugged.

“Not really. Think about it, if you tried to stay in my home for more than… a minute?” He squinted at Gregor, trying to read from his face if he was remembering correctly. “Anyway, I can still breathe up here, you’d die real quick if you tried visiting me. I’d say I’ve got the better deal here.”

Gregor had to admit that he was right. “Yeah, drowning is one of the worst ways to die.” He guided Zalvetta to his usual spot and sat down, staring out at the dark water. He had to suppress a shudder. Zalvetta frowned at him, a slow realisation dawning on his face.

“You’re afraid of it.” It was a statement, not a question. Gregor nodded.

“It’s just-” he shook his head. “No, don’t like it. Rather not, really.” His tone became lighter, more jovial towards the end. Zalvetta laughed.

“Well, that’s good because I really prefer you alive.”

Gregor snorted, lightly shoving Zalvetta’s shoulder. A comfortable silence settled over them, the only sound the gentle noise of waves washing over the shore.

* * *

“Do you know how to dance?” Gregor didn’t really know why he asked, but he did. It was a warm night in late July, the full moon hung bright overhead like it had on the night they first met. Zalvetta blinked, surprised for a second.

“Of course I know how to dan-” he paused, looking down at his lower half, a shining fishtail at that moment. “Ok so I know how to dance, just not in any human way,” he settled on instead. Gregor laughed lightly.

“I can teach you,” he suggested. Zalvetta looked at him, a thoughtful look crossing his face.

“How about we trade. You teach me how to dance your way, I’ll teach you how to dance my way.” He slipped into the water as he spoke, submerging himself up to his chest.

Gregor eyed the dark water for a long moment. “You can try,” his tone carried his hesitance clearly. “You’ll have to teach me how to actually swim first, though.”

Zalvetta stared at him blankly for a second. “You-you're the son of a fisherman.” He began to rise out of the water again, walking towards the shore on legs that were much steadier than they had been the first time around. Gregor got to his feet and stretched.

“Yeah, and my other dad doesn’t know how to swim, either, what’s your point?”

Zalvetta shook his head but didn’t push the subject any further. “So how do humans dance?”

“There’s a lot of dances…” he hesitated for a moment. Zalvetta stood patiently in front of him, the light of the moon making him look almost ethereal. “Take my hand.” He had decided on a simple couples' dance. Easy to learn and to remember.

* * *

“You’re too tense. Just focus on floating, your body’s good at that, use it to your advantage.” Zalvetta gently held Gregor in place. Teaching someone how to swim was an entirely new concept to him. It felt a little like trying to teach someone how to breathe, but he was fairly sure he could do it. He knew how to swim with legs, he just needed to adapt that to someone who couldn’t breathe underwater.  
In a different situation, he might have taken a moment to marvel at just how soft Gregor’s hair was. He had more important things to focus on, though, so he merely filed the fact away for consideration at a later date.

“I’m gonna let you go now, ok?” Gregor nodded. Slowly Zalvetta drew away, a proud grin spread over his face as Gregor stayed afloat, letting the water carry him. His legs were drifting down slightly, but other than that he seemed to have the hang of it.

Gregor shifted, putting his feet down on the ground again and stood up. In the spot Zalvetta had chosen, when standing, the water barely came up to his chest. Gregor frowned down at the soft waves around him.

“Why is it so calming?” he asked. Zalvetta tilted his head to the side.

“What do you mean?” He honestly didn’t have a clue. Gregor looked up at him.

“Water, being surrounded by it when it’s like this,” he gestured to the calm state of the water in the cove. “It’s relaxing?” Zalvetta frowned. There was no difference that he could feel between the water out on the far open ocean and the water here.

“Maybe it’s a human thing?” he suggested. Gregor nodded thoughtfully, leaning back again and letting the water carry him.

“I like it.”

* * *

By the time they were both eighteen Gregor could almost keep up with Zalvetta in the water, provided he had legs, and he could almost keep up with Gregor on land. Of course, Zalvetta could still swim circles around him when he used his tail, that would never change, but Gregor didn’t mind.

He still didn’t like the open ocean much, and he still feared drowning above all other deaths, but the sea had brought him Zalvetta, and the cove, and a calm he couldn’t quite explain. It was enough for him, he reasoned, even as that guarded corner of his heart continued to protest.

“You weave stories into the stars?” Zalvetta asked on a night with no moon. His face tilted towards the sky, trying to connect the dots in the same way Gregor could.

“You don’t?” Gregor asked. Zalvetta looked back down.

“Stars are used as navigational tools at need, but the majority of us don’t tend to spend as much time above the surface as I do.” He stared out over the water, a distant look in his eyes.

“What do you tell stories about, then?” Gregor asked.

“The tides, whale song, the deepest, darkest reaches of the sea where no one dares to go.” He lay down, staring once again up at the stars. “Tell me about them?” Gregor frowned at the stars for a second, trying to pick a place to start.

“That one.” He pointed, and Zalvetta followed his direction to the cluster of dots in the sky. “That’s Orion, a hunter from Greek mythology. I think he wanted to kill all the animals or something? So Hera sent a scorpion to kill him? That’s supposed to be why Orion and Scorpio were never in the sky together...”

That night they stayed later than they ever before, trading stories. Gregor could’ve fallen asleep there, listening to Zalvetta tell him of whales and deep secrets and the whisper of the moon in the tides. He could’ve stayed there forever, laying beside Zalvetta on a beach under a clear, moonless sky.

* * *

When Gregor was nineteen, Zalvetta vanished without a word. Gone like the whispers of a good dream you couldn’t quite remember when you woke up. The first night that Gregor arrived to find the cove empty he knew, somehow, that Zalvetta wasn’t coming. He was never there first, it didn’t work like that.

Gregor had never had his heart broken before. He’d felt grief, he still mourned people long gone from the world, but the kind of heartbreak he felt at the continuous sight of the empty cove was new. Because Zalvetta wasn’t dead. He didn’t know how he knew, but he did.

Zalvetta wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t coming back, either. If he’d had anyone he could talk to about Zalvetta in honesty, they would’ve told him to stop going back. To stop going down on foggy mornings and clear night, but he didn’t.

His parents could tell something was wrong, but what could Gregor say to put their worries to rest? ‘The person I love who is also a mythical creature went back to the sea and I don’t know how to deal with it’? It sounded ridiculous, even when he knew the whole story was nothing but the truth.

Three years. He leaned back against the cliff with a sigh, staring up at the stars shining high above him. That was how it went, wasn’t it? Three, seven, or nine, before the spell was broken and the world had to return to normal. Except Zalvetta had become part of his normal.

The cove seemed still to ring with the faded echo of his voice and so, Gregor returned. Every time he woke to fog pressed thick against his window, every time it looked to be a clear night, he returned.

* * *

For a month, Gregor continued to return to the cove. For a month Zalvetta only visited him in dreams. Brief dreams that faded too quickly when he woke up, leaving only vague images of golden hair and amber eyes behind. Until that wasn’t all. Until the night Gregor accidentally fell asleep at the cove.

“Gregor?” Zalvetta’s voice felt distant, a far-away dreamlike quality clung to it, but still, Gregor recognized it. How could he not? “You shouldn’t be sleeping here.” Worry laced clearly through his words.

Slowly Gregor opened his eyes, prepared to see the roof of his room only to be greeted by an achingly familiar face.

“This’s a dream,” he murmured, still half asleep. Zalvetta frowned.

“It’s not, come on you need to get up.” A cold hand touched his neck, bringing him startlingly and immediately back into full wakefulness. He drew away with a yelp, shaking himself off.

“Your hands are _freezing_!” he complained before reality fully set in. He stared at Zalvetta for a long moment, his mind racing to make sense of what his eyes were telling him. A wave of intense relief flooded him, tinged by confusion and a hurt he didn’t want to think too much about. His eyes scanned Zalvetta, taking note of everything.

He looked tired. A bone-deep kind of tiredness that Gregor recognized only too well. His confusion melted away to worry in an instant, but Zalvetta held up a hand to stop him before he could speak.

“I’m sorry. I know, nothing I say can make up for vanishing like that but I am. ‘Sorry’ feels like too weak a word, even. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I wanted to get it said at least.”

Gregor shifted closer to Zalvetta, noting the shadows under his eyes. He seemed to have lost weight, too, which didn’t sit well with Gregor. “What happened?”

Zalvetta looked up, seeming honestly surprised for a second before he shook his head. “You’re allowed to get angry, you know,” he said softly. Gregor frowned.

“You don’t look well, what happened?” he repeated insistently. Three years they’d known each other, and Zalvetta had been gone for just one month. There had to be a reason for his vanishing. Otherwise, he’d never have come back.

“My father died.”

“I’m so s-” Gregor started but Zalvetta shook his head, a bitter expression flashing across his face.

“Don’t be, he was the worst,” he sighed. “But he wasn’t exactly insignificant. The death rites took forever and direct family isn’t allowed to leave the village before the last of them is over. I should’ve figured out some way to get a message to you, though.”

Gregor considered his answer for a moment. “If you couldn’t figure it out I’m sure it was impossible,” he finally settled on. Zalvetta snorted.

“You give me too much credit.”

Gregor shrugged, stretching slightly to try and sort out the pain in his back. “Maybe, but I trust you. If it were possible, you’d have found a way.”

Zalvetta froze. Gregor’s words sent a wave of emotions, many, too many to sort out any one for sure, through his heart. It settled, quickly, into overwhelming affection. He thought, maybe, it might be similar to what warmth felt like.

“I don’t deserve you,” he shook his head. Even he could hear the affection behind his words, but he didn’t really care. He’d never really tried to hide it he just hadn’t gone out of his way to make it obvious, either.

“That’s not really up to you to decide,” Gregor pointed out without missing a beat. “I’ll keep coming back as long as you want to see me.”

“I guess you’re stuck with me, then,” Zalvetta laughed, leaning back slightly. Gregor smiled.

“Works for me.”

* * *

The thing about leaving thing left unsaid, about burying your feelings down deep and convincing yourself you’d be alright? It could only last so long. At some point, the dam would break, either by small cracks over time or by a sledgehammer.

So it was that in the middle of winter, as the winds howled overhead and the new year ticked closer with every passing second, Gregor gave in. Not consciously, but with a couple barely spoken words that he had not intended to be audible. His quiet admission did not go unheard.

Zalvetta stopped still and for a moment the world seemed to follow suit. Even the wind grew quieter. Zalvetta waited long enough for him to be sure Gregor wasn’t about to take back what he’d said before giving his answer. Short and simple, a little awkward, but filled with honest emotion.

* * *

Gregor learned a lot more about Zalvetta after that day. He saw him a lot more, too, a brief flash of gold under the surface of the water as he passed, a shadow tucked away in a hidden place by the mouth of the river.

Zalvetta could sing, after all, and the first time Gregor heard him do so it solidified in his mind that the tales of enchantments woven through song were true. Zalvetta’s hair, when dry, felt like silk in his hands and was equally as slippery and utterly impossible to work with. He didn’t give up, though, and hailed the first time he managed to actually get a braid to stick in Zalvetta’s hair as one of the greatest triumphs of his life.

He learned, after some convincing, what it looked like when Zalvetta changed his shape. It was disturbing to look at, tail splitting or legs melding together, but Gregor was determined that there could be no part of Zalvetta’s core nature that he would not accept. Nothing that could convince him to leave.

The night he voiced that thought was the night Zalvetta showed him a different face. Not his true face, he was a shapeshifter, limited to a few forms but a shape sifter none the less. He had no true form in the way Gregor thought of his own body. Zalvetta was ever-changing, moving between states, mixing and matching, never settling down.

This was the kind of face that had spawned the stories of monsters beneath the waves, of man-eaters who lulled their prey into a false sense of security. Scaled, too thin, too flat, fish-like, with large, glassy eyes that never blinked and teeth still sharper and more deadly, somehow, than the ones Gregor had gotten used to.

Zalvetta showed him this other face of his and, true to his word, Gregor did not care.

* * *

“You know what’s bullshit?” Zalvetta asked one early summer morning in their twenty-first year. He was laying half on top of Gregor, his arms folded on Gregor’s chest.

“What?”

“Magic. Magic is bullshit.” Zalvetta laid his head down on his arms. Gregor raised an eyebrow. “I could spend a whole day with you, live in your home, eat with you, dance, do literally whatever we felt like, but I can never fall asleep beside you.”

Gregor sighed, raising a hand to run it gently through Zalvetta’s hair. Truthfully that had also been on his mind. One thing he knew for sure, no matter how annoyed Zalvetta acted about the ocean’s rules and the magic that bound him to it, he would never want to leave it. If there was a way to take him out of the ocean permanently he would waste away. He may not have been a selkie, but all of the ocean’s children felt that same pull.

“Have you ever thought about getting married?” Gregor asked quietly. Zalvetta raised his head, blinking down at him with a mildly surprised look on his face.

“Not really,” he answered. “Why?”

Gregor hummed thoughtfully. “I don’t have any strong feelings either way but… I think… I wouldn’t mind getting married if it was to you?”

Zalvetta laughed lightly. “Dork,” he muttered fondly, leaning down to press a soft kiss to Gregor’s forehead. Gregor laughed.

“I love you, too.”

* * *

“A BOAT!”

Zalvetta jumped, losing his balance and falling off his rock back into the water at Gregor’s excited if nonsensical greeting. He resurfaced, shaking his hair out of his eyes.

“What?”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” Gregor walked to the water’s edge, holding out a hand. Zalvetta took it, letting himself be pulled to his feet. “The magic, does it count boats as land?” Zalvetta blinked, a slow smile beginning to form on his face as he came to the same realization Gregor had.

“No, no it doesn’t.” His heart was picking up its pace, Gregor’s excitement was contagious enough on its own but this, this was a real plan. Or the vague start of one, at least. He didn’t have time to think much further because as soon as he’d confirmed Gregor’s theory he found himself drawn up into a spinning hug.

“Ok, ok-” Gregor set him down, though the giddy feeling of excitement didn’t fade- “before you say anything I’m not gonna drop my whole life to live in a boat out on the open ocean.” Zalvetta laughed.

“Didn’t think you would. What _is_ the proposed plan, though?”

“I could build a houseboat. I have a friend who’s good at building and planning things to help and I have access to the materials. What do you think?”

Zalvetta nodded thoughtfully. “That’ll definitely work. Where’s it gonna be anchored?”

“Somewhere near the village.”

“Yeah… ok, yeah, that’s a plan. We have a plan.”

It felt a little surreal at first, to draw up plans and bounce ideas off each other for a home that could be both of theirs. Almost perfectly between land and sea. It was very real, though, and they threw themselves into the work, to bring to life their vision for a future where their time together wasn’t dependant on magic or the whims of the weather.

* * *

Zalvetta was twenty-three, with Gregor soon to be so as well, when they stood for the first time in their completed home. In the end, they had decided to anchor it in the cove, partially because it was such a calm area, partially because, well, it was the cove.

The houseboat itself wasn’t especially elegant or large or fancy, but it was theirs. Gregor drew a deep breath, the slight shaking of his hands betraying clearly the intensity of his feelings.

“It’s real,” he sounded almost like he didn’t believe it, despite having spent two years of his life on the project. “It’s real and you’re real and we’re-”

“Home,” Zalvetta finished for him, pulling him in for a soft kiss.


End file.
